Undoctored: The brand new No 1 Sunday Times bestseller from the author of 'This Is Going To Hurt’

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Which do you prefer: people asking you for medical advice at parties, or people recognising you and asking you about Ben Whishaw? There is no shame in having put in your hours and your years and then going off to something else. Because medicine isn’t your defining characteristic as a as a person, it’s your job and you can’t let it destroy you.’

And things are now better – they are not better enough, there’s still a long way to go – but it’s a big ship to steer.’ Next month, the Observer will publish a “You Ask the Questions”-style interview with Adam Kay. Whether you’re a medical professional yourself or a patient, now is the time to ask him a question of your choice. Does he miss being a doctor? Do people still ask him about their ailments at parties? And did he really witness a marriage proposal after extracting the ring from you-know-where? Send us your questionsHe’s a proper national treasure. There are millions of people who now presumably think that I look like Ben Whishaw too, and I’m absolutely happy with that!’ he laughs. By turns hilarious, heartbreaking and humbling, Undoctored is about what happens when a doctor hangs up his scrubs, but medicine refuses to let go of him. Coming out to his family (I was confused about this because I thought he had already come out and that H, his partner from This Is Going to Hurt was a man, I think I probably got the TV show mixed up) Write down what it is you want to do at the bottom of a piece of paper, and then see if you can work on what the steps are to getting there. It’s a major roll of the dice asking for medical advice, I’ve been out of the game a long time. All you would get are half-remembered semi-facts. And people are always disappointed when they ask about Ben Whishaw because he’s such a lovely man I can’t offer anything approaching a juicy anecdote.

Stand-up is both diagnosis of pain and cure: the fury and the laughter that soothes it. I’m not surprised he wanted to bring babies into the world: he is all in pieces. I now see Kay’s attempt at medicine as a great act of transference: to heal others at the expense of himself; to birth others who would be happier than himself, in a kind of thwarted renewal. Now I understand him better, I understand his cruelty. He never extended kindness to himself. This book is breathtakingly sad, and I suspect that will anger him, too. The mood music isn’t that there’s going to be a huge amount of extra money going into the NHS anytime soon, what with everything going on. So God bless everyone who’s working in the NHS at the moment. I really don’t know how they’re doing it.’I think if I hadn’t done medicine, I’d probably have been a musician. Medicine insists that you have all these extracurricular interests and for me, that was mostly music and I really loved music. I wonder if I’d be writing for the piano right now, writing dots rather than writing words.’